Nuzzo's office was unchanged from all those months earlier. The same maps and streetplans on the wall, the same president of the republic staring solemnly down. Out of the window, the same thin rectangle of sea could be viewed between the neighbouring buildings, it undulations tinted peach in the fading light. Discarded on his desk was a plate dusted with icing sugar and doughnut crumbs. Over in the corner, meanwhile, the same electric fan whirred noisily away, pecked at the corners of the papers he was flicking through. These were the contents of the case file, each sheet in turn thrust up to eyes, briefly examined.
It felt strange to be back there again, the place where the whole damn thing had begun. I could still picture it so vividly - Sarah seated beside me, the gentle bobbing motion of her shoulders as she wept. Her phone grasped in hand, those desperate, appealing eyes.
Where the hell is he? Why doesn't he at least call?
I wondered if the body had already been returned in patria. If a funeral date had been set. Maybe I should send something - a card, phone up a Nottingham flower shop. But all words, all gestures, seemed somehow hollow and inadequate I realised. Justice: this was the only thing Sarah needed right now.
"This is the one," Nuzzo finally announced, one of the sheets of paper held to squinted eyes. "Rocco something, the name of the old man. If only I could to read this blasted handwriting!" He offered the sheet across - this resulting as the responding officer's official report of the hotline call - but I too was unable to make any sense of the indecipherable squiggle which represented the caller's surname.
"Ciavarella," Nuzzo hissed, grabbing back the sheet to study the officer's signature. "I should have known."
As he lumbered out into the corridor, his voice booming out the name of his dysgraphic subordinate, I found my attention drawn to the back of the silver photograph frame on his desk. Yes, this was another little detail I remembered from from all those months earlier. It had intrigued me then, even more so now. Though not normally so nosey with regards to other people's personal matters - or at least I like to think not - I just couldn't help myself. A photograph in full view: it was hardly like prising open a secret diary or rooting through a locked drawer. Flicking my gaze furtively out to the corridor, making doubly sure, I reached out my hand, turned the photo around...
That it was dated by thirty years or so was clear from the heavily sprayed hairstyle of the young woman beaming back at me. There was the shoulder padding of her dress jacket too, the slight over-doneness of her make-up, particularly around cheekbones. Attractive though for all that, clearly Mediterranean of genetics. Her smile was natural, sweet. Behind her, a little unfocused, loomed the type of rennaisance-era cityscape which put me more in mind of central or northern Italy rather than the south. And there in her arms, the face just visible over the blanket it was bundled up in, was a baby whose age looked like it could still be calculated in weeks or even days.
A two- or three-second glimpse, that was all I could allow myself. The photograph was turned back around and my hand retreated to lap, just in time for the commander"s return. A somewhat sheepish-looking Ciavarella trailed in behind him, my presence acknowleged with a nodded greeting which, though perfectly friendly, failed to hide an air of intrigue and surprise. As ten months earlier, he remained upright in the doorway, hands crossed behind his back.
"Tell me Ciavarella," Nuzzo began, wincing himself back into swivel chair. "You have primary schools up there in Abruzzo"
Abruzzo, I thought? The region which borders Apulia to the north, just past the spur of the boot. I hadn't known this, had just always assumed Ciavarella was a local lad. Though able to distinguish a northern accent from a southern one, my ear wasn't yet so attuned as to tell natives of neighbouring regions apart.
"Of course we have primary schools, comandante." The younger man's brow was slightly lowered, unsure what all this about.
"And the children, they are taught how to write? How to hold a pen?"
"Of course, comandante." Ciavarella's tone was almost indignant now.
The call response form was wafted in the air like a lawyer brandishing irrefutable evidence. It was then passed across to me, a narrow-eyed nod of the head indicating that I should in turn hand it onto its recalcitrant author. "Maybe you wouldn't mind deciphering this for the ispettore and I?"
The old man's surname was Quaranta, we were soon informed. "He said he was eighty-eight," Ciavarella recalled. ''He had to think for a moment however. I think maybe he was lying."
Nuzzo shot me a brief a glare. "A man that lies about his age is a man that lies about everything. Even the size of his shoe. I knew we were only wasting our time with this."
Ignoring him, I looked back up at Ciavarella, hoped he wouldn't notice the slight slur to my words, the smell of wine on my breath. "Apart from his age," I asked, "did you get the impression that he lied about anything else?"
The appuntato nodded, but not it seemed in answer to the question. More to himself, understanding now, realising why Nuzzo had dragged him into his office, why we were asking him about this. Handwriting aside, the lad had all the makings of a good copper. For all his brusqueness, I think Nuzzo knew this too.
"You think..?"
"I don't think anything," Nuzzo interrupted, a hand swished accusingly out in my direction. "It is the ispettore here that thinks. Too much he thinks."
"An avenue which might be worth exploring," I explained.
"It was many months ago of course..." Ciavarella puffed out his cheeks, tried to recall. "But no, I don't think he lied about other things. Just his age."
Using as prompts the notes he'd scribbled onto the report, he talked us through the call as best as could be remembered. It had come at 8.47 of that Tuesday evening - one of the earliest, a matter of minutes after the story had gone out on the regional bulletins. The old man could remember having seen figures on the beach around two o'clock of that fateful early Monday morning. Three of them, he'd stated - two ahead, the third a little behind. When asked from what distance he'd seen them, signor Quaranta had replied evenly that he'd been up on the headland, Pozzetta side. The same headland I'd been forced to descend the day Sean Bracewell's remains had been discovered due to the traffic diversions along the coast road, a distance of roughly four hundred metres. It was at this point, Ciavarella admitted, that his initial interest had waned a little.
"A man of his age, that distance, the middle of the night... It didn't sound so convincing."
"Did he elaborate on this?" I asked. "I mean, what was the light situation that night?"
There was a slight grimace. "I didn't ask, ispettore. The calls, they were starting to arrive fast. Beside me, all my colleagues had receivers to ear. I wanted to free the line."
"What I want to know," piped up Nuzzo,"is what in the Virgin's name was a man of ninety years doing on the Pozzetta headland at two in the morning?"
Ciavarella tossed his shoulders - a shrug which seemed to convey the opinion that this was a matter of little import. "It was normal, he said, that he takes the dog for a walk at all hours of the night. He had some months before lost his wife. And also he had fought in the war - Greece, I think he said." The apuntato looked at each of us in turn. "It's understandable that a man in Mr Quaranta's situation had difficulty getting to sleep."
Of course it was, I reflected, remembering my own recent struggles in this regard. Even Nuzzo was subdued into silence.
"Two o'clock," I pressed. "He was sure about this?"
Ciavarella crinkled his brow. "Now I think about it, he wasn't so sure, no."
The frown deepened as he attempted to pull the memory back, haul it out into the light. Apart from the natural doubts connected to the witness's age and hence the reliability of his eyesight, a report of figures on the beach in the early hours of that godforsaken Monday morning might not, at the time, have seemed of great significance. Furthermore, it had within minutes dropped completely off the radar when the paramedic's call had come. The subsequent discovery of the hire car, all that had followed, had shoved investigations in every conceivable direction other than the beach.
"I remember I had to ask him more than once," Ciavarella continued. "It was important, I told him. We had to know what the time was." There was another nod of recollection, his gaze passing from me and finally onto his superior. "He said he didn't have a watch. Said that at his time of the life, what the time is doesn't matter so much any more."
"A guess," I concluded, glancing pointedly at Nuzzo. "Two o'clock was just a complete guess."